New York Governor Cuomo briefs the press on the Covid pandemic

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo holds a press conference Tuesday on the coronavirus after it was announced that the state has identified its first Covid-19 case caused by a new, more contagious variant of the virus.

On Monday, Cuomo told reporters on a conference call that New York had confirmed its first Covid-19 case with the new strain B.1.1.7, originally discovered in the United Kingdom. The man, who is now recovering, lives in New York state with no travel history, the governor said.

The strain, which has also been found in California, Florida, and Colorado, is believed to be communicable but doesn’t appear to make people sicker or increase the risk of death from Covid-19, experts have said.

“If other states could test as much as we tested and tested on the British strain as much as we tested, they would find them,” Cuomo said.

During a press conference earlier Monday, the Democratic governor urged state hospitals to speed up their allocations of coronavirus vaccines and threatened fines of up to $ 10,000 if they fail to use the doses by the end of this week.

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.